Unstructured Finance

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“A game of two halves” is a footballing cliché in the UK, but was particularly apt for the European funds industry in 2011. The stock market falls that began in July not only ended the healthy sales activity that had started the year, but triggered a wave of redemptions that rolled through the industry. While these outflows ebbed slightly in the final quarter of the year, there were few who did not feel the cold chill of investors withdrawing from mutual funds by the year-end.

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As the debate on fund charges heats up, the appeal of having a barometer to gauge investors’ attitudes to fund costs has risen. Ideally this would go beyond opinion polls and show not just what investors think, but what they actually do.

One way of measuring this is to look at the assets invested in index tracking funds (where minimising costs is a core part of the product) and compare this to funds of funds (where the importance of professional fund manager selection entails an additional cost).

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Among the side-effects of the financial crisis, the importance for European wealth managers and other intermediaries of both managing investors’ expectations and understanding fully what those expectations are, has been underlined.

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I would like to tell you a story. It’s one about the tempestuous relationship between fund managers and their investors, a tale of envy, desire and basis point negotiations. You may have spotted by now that this is not the plot for this season’s latest blockbuster.